|
Finished Healer's Road and I'm like half way through the sequel. I love these books. Call me sappy but I love stuff like this. Books set in the real world are hard for me to get into because its impossible to not constantly mutter about bougioise culture and liberalism the whole time. Somehow making it 'basically 1700s but also theres magic instead of TNT' makes it fine in my brain.
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2019 02:44
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 05:36 |
|
|
I'm somewhere between a third/half through Gideon the Ninth so far, and for western fiction it seems to have a pretty strong Tsutomu Nihei feel.
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2019 04:12
|
|
|
Steel Frame is outstanding, it manages to make stupid anime bullshit real and unsettling and tells a great story while doing so.
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2019 04:20
|
|
|
Larry Parrish posted:I always rate books based on my attention span. If they take me more than a day or two to read, they're mediocre at best. Like I burned through steel frame in like 8 hours, broken up by work and sleep. Goblin Emperor was good but kind of boring and flowery (although that was the point) so it took me about twice as long. Seconding this. I will binge read a good book, while a mediocre book gets down prioritized in comparison to kids and reading SA forums. As recent example, a little hatred took two days, while too like the lightning took two weeks. And with a reading speed of 150 pages an hour says something about my enjoyment of the latter.
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2019 05:42
|
|
|
That doesn't strike me as a great system to rate books by. You'd just end up giving all the page-turners 5 stars regardless of any other factor. Web serials are pretty much written to lead you by the nose to the next chapter, they frequently end on a a cliffhanger that's just intriguing enough to make you want to find out what happens next.
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2019 06:29
|
|
|
I don't think it should be the only factor you rate something by, but it is significant, especially in the SFF genre. Like, the specific book I was referencing which brought this up is supposed to be a YA adventure novel. It should be pretty tightly paced. If my attention is wandering because Philip Pullman has decided he wants to write about an insurance assessor interviewing somebody about a workplace injury (OK, this is a cover story for a spy, but still) then that's a mark against it. But of course there are many great works of sci-fi and fantasy which are difficult reads. Gormenghast springs to mind. Cardiac posted:And with a reading speed of 150 pages an hour And this, to me, is crazy and sounds like those people who listen to podcasts at double speed.
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2019 07:00
|
|
|
Are the new Pullman novels YA? I got the vibe that they were targeted at the young people who'd read His Dark Materials as kids/teens and were now adults, but admittedly I haven't actually read them yet (I wanna do a reread of the original series first).
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2019 10:39
|
|
|
That's probably correct. They read like YA but are really targeted at a specific set of adult readers. "gently caress" gets dropped a fair bit in the second one, and apparently in the first one - I don't remember this even though I only read it a year ago, which is maybe a testament to how much my attention was wandering off or maybe it was just subtle, but fortunately around page 100 in the second book there's a clunky Previously On exposition scene which even includes a phrase like "I'll hand over to Hannah now" - a character is raped. But even if it's not YA it's still an alternate universe fantasy adventure, and it just feels glacially slow sometimes.
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2019 11:02
|
|
|
I'm not really sure what a reading speed means judged by pages/hour unless everything you read is written at the same level. I'm all about pacing but if you're reading, like, Sebald at 150 pages an hour then you're just letting the words go in and out. Bad pacing is a common problem in SFF like everywhere else but I think evaluating it has gotta be more complicated than "slow = bad."
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2019 14:52
|
|
|
ReWinter posted:I'm not really sure what a reading speed means judged by pages/hour unless everything you read is written at the same level. I'm all about pacing but if you're reading, like, Sebald at 150 pages an hour then you're just letting the words go in and out. Bad pacing is a common problem in SFF like everywhere else but I think evaluating it has gotta be more complicated than "slow = bad." The goon reads how they read and they judge books by how fast they read them. They probably aren't reading Ulysees. If that is how someone wants to read it's their business.
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2019 15:15
|
|
|
Reading speed indirectly plays into my rankings. Mostly because when I'm enjoying a book, I tend to pick it up for another couple of pages whenever I have a moment. If I'm not enjoying it as much, I tend go for the phone instead. So a pages per day number goes up because I'm reading more often.
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2019 15:54
|
|
|
freebooter posted:people who listen to podcasts at double speed. I listen to audiobooks and podcasts at double speed. After you listen for a few minutes, your brain syncs up just fine.
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2019 16:24
|
|
|
pseudanonymous posted:The goon reads how they read and they judge books by how fast they read them. They probably aren't reading Ulysees. If that is how someone wants to read it's their business. Agreed. Not everyone has the same reading habits or author likes/hates. For example, I will skip any amount of poems in a book. Parrish has mentioned a few times in the mil-scifi thread how they picked up that reading habit( boredom killer method during endless graveyard shifts while enlisted), and if it works for them/continues to work for them, fine. Read Dean Ing's Spooker this week. It sure was something bizarre-terrible. Spooker had an interesting plot hook, undercover spies are getting stalked and killed by unknown parties, everything else about it was just off. Would call it a mashup of Thomas Harris's Red Dragon and Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt with Ing's special fixation on airplanes airplanes airplanes, future-tech, and depraved secondary antagonists tying everything together.
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2019 16:25
|
|
|
I've posted the Book Barn Secret Santa thread; pop over to sign up! https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3903265
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2019 16:40
|
|
|
The prose doesnt really have an affect on how fast I read. Well, not totally true. Tolkien took me longer, but I also really hated reading it, so it's hard to tell how much was my mind glazing over. Anyway you just kind of get used to reading at a certain speed and the content is kind of irrelevant
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2019 17:28
|
|
|
ReWinter posted:I'm not really sure what a reading speed means judged by pages/hour unless everything you read is written at the same level. I'm all about pacing but if you're reading, like, Sebald at 150 pages an hour then you're just letting the words go in and out. Bad pacing is a common problem in SFF like everywhere else but I think evaluating it has gotta be more complicated than "slow = bad." It’s not so much the pages per hour - if I’m enjoying a book, even if it’s difficult prose, I don’t put it down to check Facebook or watch some TV or whatever (or in extreme cases to sleep.). If I’m not enjoying it as much, it’ll take a lot longer because I’ll take excuses to put it down far more readily. Because of that I think it’s fair to relate how quickly I read books to how good I thought they were-a book I took two weeks to read is almost certainly one I enjoyed less than a book I read over the course of a single session.
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2019 17:59
|
|
|
Healer's Home was also very good but I'm starting to think that like a black hole, the time when Agna and Kei stop trying to tell the other what they want to hear is infinitely receding
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2019 22:05
|
|
|
I think knowing how fast you read is roughly on the same level as knowing your IQ
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2019 22:12
|
|
|
People absolutely have a speed they are comfortable with though and some people don't like audiobooks because they don't fit the "default" 1.0 and their mind wanders (too slow) or they can't keep track (too fast). It also fluctuates between narrators, and people who are trying audiobooks for the first time don't realize this, try it once and bounce off because it's the wrong speed 
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2019 22:18
|
|
|
General Battuta posted:I think knowing how fast you read is roughly on the same level as knowing your IQ At least you can do party tricks with the first one?
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2019 22:18
|
|
|
General Battuta posted:I think knowing how fast you read is roughly on the same level as knowing your IQ to be technical, i only have a vague sense but I know it's a lot faster than most other people who dont also read constantly. at least, when I like the book
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2019 22:25
|
|
|
General Battuta posted:I think knowing how fast you read is roughly on the same level as knowing your IQ Evelyn Wood could supposedly read 2700 wpm. Speaking of fast reading, I'm surprised no one has tried to revive the Reader's Digest Condensed Books line. I guess audiobooks fill the same niche now.
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2019 22:33
|
|
|
freebooter posted:I don't think it should be the only factor you rate something by, but it is significant, especially in the SFF genre. Like, the specific book I was referencing which brought this up is supposed to be a YA adventure novel. It should be pretty tightly paced. If my attention is wandering because Philip Pullman has decided he wants to write about an insurance assessor interviewing somebody about a workplace injury (OK, this is a cover story for a spy, but still) then that's a mark against it. I remember binge reading Ghormenghast and Wolfe and can’t actually recall whether they took any longer than usual. Nowadays with small kids at home, I notice the difference in how much I enjoy a book. A good book will get read in short time, while a less interesting one gets stuck on my desk for longer. The same reading speed applies, just not the motivation. Someone once explained to me that the difference between fast readers and slower is that the former scan the text lines and the latter goes word by word. In any case, I have attention issues with podcasts, audiobooks and video clips, cause they are just so slow compared to actually reading a text about the same thing.
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2019 05:51
|
|
|
Selachian posted:Evelyn Wood could supposedly read 2700 wpm. There's a stupid ad on tv for blinkist that does this for audiobooks. It's inherently aimed at the self-help market.
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2019 08:53
|
|
|
branedotorg posted:There's a stupid ad on tv for blinkist that does this for audiobooks. I presume some SV techbros saw the first point this tweet and decided to make it into a app. https://twitter.com/erocdrahs/status/1127132182789742592
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2019 09:24
|
|
|
I just pulp my books and drink them like ink-flavored Soylent.
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2019 10:17
|
|
|
Steel Frame? More like Steel Really Good.
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2019 10:28
|
|
|
C.M. Kruger posted:I presume some SV techbros saw the first point this tweet and decided to make it into a app. This makes me really want to publish a good book so that this douchebro can “try to connect” with me to “discuss in depth”, and I can tell him to gently caress off.
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2019 15:20
|
|
|
lol why is his name redacted? People might want to connect with the author and discuss in depth 
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2019 17:22
|
|
|
Clark Nova posted:lol why is his name redacted? People might want to connect with the author and discuss in depth https://twitter.com/RMBanfield/status/1109079546798768128
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2019 18:07
|
|
|
I mean it makes more sense when you consider that the only books that guy is reading are self-help and business books
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2019 18:32
|
|
|
(Full disclosure I'm doing publicity for this book on a volunteer basis - I'm not getting paid, I just like it a lot and I'm not as shy as the author) If you've finished Gideon and want more weird queer SF written by a New Zealander, The Dawnhounds came out yesterday. It's got gay witches fighting fascist cops with the power of myco-magic! It's about a disgraced ex-cop who has to solve her own murder while a bio-engineered plague tears her city— which is kinda like a Southeast Asian Ankh-Morepork but with more mushrooms—apart around her.
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2019 22:37
|
|
|
I was just coming into the thread to see if anyone had read that yet actually. I loving devoured an ARC of Dawnhounds, over the course of like... a day? Which isn't 281 Pages Per Hour or whatever the gently caress, but for me lately that's a big deal. Anyway. It's Mievillian at times, super queer, and like... honestly, it's not often I'll give the time of day to an unknown author but it does a bunch real good, and I wish it'd gotten a wider release. People are gonna sleep on it and really, really miss out. There's cosmic horror AND pirates! And smooching and kungfu! And all of that like, legit works out super well! It's good. It's way better than it should be.
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2019 22:58
|
|
|
cptn_dr posted:(Full disclosure I'm doing publicity for this book on a volunteer basis - I'm not getting paid, I just like it a lot and I'm not as shy as the author) Also the author is a goon. I beta read this and it’s loving cool
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2019 23:03
|
|
|
Weirdly, in the US at least, it's available on Kindle Unlimited at the moment--normally that's not a sign of great faith in a new author but if you were wavering on it, that's a way to try it freely/cheaply without having to wait on ILS or something. I haven't read it yet but I thank the thread for bringing it to my attention, it sounds cool. I also just finished Priory of the Orange Tree which is a perfectly competently executed fantasy with lesbians in. It's huge--clocks in at 800 pages--but it's a complete story in one volume which is jawdroppingly rare these days in fantasy. If it had come out when I was 15-16 it would have been my favorite book for a few years, but I'm old so I simply enjoyed reading it once and now I have to lug it back to the library so Columbia University can have its book back. The three checkout notations (handwritten no less!) in the back are all ILS borrows.
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2019 23:06
|
|
|
does anyone have anything to say about it that's not a feature list because tbh I just skip books where that's all people have to say, cuz they almost always suck and read like someone going through a checklist of stuff nerds would like
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2019 23:19
|
|
|
Larry Parrish posted:does anyone have anything to say about it that's not a feature list because tbh I just skip books where that's all people have to say, cuz they almost always suck and read like someone going through a checklist of stuff nerds would like Goon-written murder mystery in a city beset by the plague, where the protagonist is both the detective and murder victim. I haven't read it yet but that's the distilled summary. e: Just snapped it up, thanks for reccing it, thread! StrixNebulosa fucked around with this message at 23:26 on Nov 8, 2019 |
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2019 23:23
|
|
|
StrixNebulosa posted:the protagonist is both the detective and murder victim. Is there a horse vs. motorcycle chase?
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2019 23:27
|
|
|
Also I should say at the time I was reading it, it was like one edit away from final, but even then I thought it compared well to anything currently published by Tor
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2019 23:35
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 05:36 |
|
|
I bought the book via amazon as a physical copy because I adore paperbacks, and I was wondering - while that's the cheapest and most effective way to get me a book as soon as it can get here, is it really the best way to support an author? Is there like, a direct itch.io storefront or something, or is amazon the best place?
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2019 23:51
|
|